Letters To The Editor

March 06, 1993

PAPER UNFAIR

I thought it was your policy not to print the names of juveniles involved in acts under police investigation. I guess implementation of that policy depends on who the youth is. A celebrity is identified, an unknown is not. How in the world can you possible justify naming a 17-year-old Bethel sports star as a possible participant in an incident at a local bowling establishment, and refuse to name a 16-year-old murderer several days later?

I guess your rationale is that a sports figure deserves to have his privacy invaded. As a teacher who cares about and supports her former students, I am telling you that you can't have it both ways. Either print all the names or none of them. I resent the unfairness displayed by your paper's decision to go the way of the tabloids.

Sue Whited

Hampton

LEAVE C-SPAN ALONE

I am an avid viewer of C-SPAN and I depend solely upon the station for current information that keeps me abreast of what is taking place in Congress, the Senate and the world.

On many occasions, the programs on C-SPAN are pre-empted by the city of Hampton to show "Hampton Highlights" and City Council meetings. I do not understand why "Hampton Highlights" and council meetings are shown on C-SPAN, when the city of Hampton has its own station (Channel 5).

My primary concern is that C-SPAN should be shown without interruptions as shown in other cities.

Juanita Grant

Hampton

LOWER BAC

Reference Del. C. Richard Cranwell's Feb. 24 letter in which he stated that he would not be opposed to .08 blood alcohol content if he could be satisfied from a medical standpoint that .08 is a level at which everyone is presumed under the influence:

Not only has the American Medical Association stated that anyone with a BAC of .05 should not operate any vehicle. Several organizations have supported lower BAC levels including the National Safety Council, the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the U.S. Surgeon General.

Lowering the limit from the current level to .08 would set the boundary at a level at which driving skills are proven to be compromised for all drivers. It is a limit that is necessary for the driving safety of all.

The .08 BAC level will raise the perceived risk of arrest for driving after drinking and improve public awareness about how much alcohol it takes to be dangerously impaired. It will also increase the arrest and conviction rates for impaired drivers at .10 and above.

Brenda J. Vaccarelli, Vice Chairman

Virginia State Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Newport News

TOO MANY DEER

In reference to the Feb. 21 editorial "Tourism's changing face: Hampton to spearhead promotion of area to visitors":

Before Hampton can get tourists "to sleep with us," it must eliminate the bed bugs and deer ticks.

Husbands prefer to play golf while their wives shop. But the Deer Run Golf Course in Newport News and the Hampton Golf Center are over-populated with whitetail deer that carry the deadly Lyme disease ticks. The Colonial National Historical Park has long been overrun with starving diseased deer. Tourists are especially at risk from the deer ticks in the grass on the battlefields and along the beaches.

Lyme Borrelious, as the deadly infection is now called, is caused by a corkscrew-shaped bacterium known as a spirochete. Lyme was first identified in Lyme, Conn.

It is now found throughout most of the United States, especially eastern Virginia. The disease is spread by tiny ticks, Ixodes dammini, that breed on overpopulated whitetail deer. The deer could be reduced on the golf courses and battlefields by military sharpshooters. The venison could be used in Irish stew to feed the hungry.

Edwin R. Riley

York County

WRONG TUNE

I was recently revulsed by the diatribe that WNOR deejay Henry "The Bull" Del Toro delivered to Jim Spencer for a column critical of an anti-gay tune. I do note, however, that in 1990, when I publicly complained about a racially tinged poem in a local museum, which alluded to blacks as "coons," Greeks as "greasy" and Italians as "wops," there was no hue and cry, aside from mine. Spencer, in fact, wrote that such terms were part and parcel of local history, and that I was playing "spin doctor" in wanting the poem removed.

Now, Spencer writes, ``Every time you hear the word `faggot,' think about the word `nigger,' '' in order to drive home his point about the ills of prejudice.

Frankly, I'm in a quandary. If Spencer feels broadcast anti-gay songs are wrong (which I do, too), why doesn't he feel it is equally wrong to give racial bigotry a place of prominence in a public museum? Where's the difference? Aired songs are transient, but exhibits are of longer duration, viewable. Bigotry - of any kind, in any medium - hardly deserves an audience.

Ron Bell

Newport News

LIMIT THEIR PERKS

One very dramatic step that we can take toward reducing government waste expense is to demand major changes in public support, through taxes, of former U.S. presidents. It is a shame and a disgrace that these people, who, when leaving office and once more being John Q. Public, are thrown onto our backs for lifelong support, in whole or in part, through all manner of free (to them) benefits and privileges. If a president serves for eight years, let the public carry him for no more than four years; if he serves for four years, let the public support him no more than two years.

This includes his libraries, museums, other building funds, transportation, security, office, staff and other expenses, excluding his standard government pension.

The time factors given are far more than enough for former Mr. President to adjust from his high-off-the-hog lifestyle back to still far above normal for the rest of us.